Early favourite to take out Saturday’s Group 1 $1,000,000 Robert Sangster Stakes (1200m) in Adelaide, local hope Viddora has come up trumps with barrier one in the Morphettville feature.
Viddora gets the inside run from barrier one in the 2018 Robert Sangster Stakes at Morphettville on Saturday in Adelaide. Photo: Jenny Barnes.
A class line-up of fillies and mares do battle in the eighteen starter Robert Sangster Stakes field this autumn including the best two over the line in 2017.
Secret Agenda for Mick Price saluted last season defeating Viddora, but the latest markets on the race at Ladbrokes.com.au have the runner-up as the one to beat twelve months on.
Locally trained by Lloyd Kennewell, the ultra-consistent I Am Invincible five-year-old Viddora is tipped to go one better and salute on Saturday enjoying a second Group 1 win.
She took out the Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes (1200m) in Perth last December after two very good efforts in elite company at The Valley that spring, before another feature race win at the Gold Coast in mid-January’s $1 million Restricted Magic Millions Sprint (1200m).
Her only run since was a first-up second in the Group 3 RN Irwin Stakes (1100m) at the Morphettville track where she finished runner-up to the WA-trained Dainty Tess and one ahead of the third-placed Secret Agenda.
In the Robert Sangster Stakes, Viddora gets the rails run from barrier one with Joe Bowditch aboard and is out to be the first favourite since the champion Black Caviar (2012) to salute.
The reigning Robert Sangster Stakes winner Secret Agenda overcame gate sixteen of twenty to win last autumn and has another wide alley for Saturday jumping from barrier fourteen with Damien Oliver aboard.
Caulfield-based Price has won the Robert Sangster Stakes a record four times with Secret Agenda (2017) joining Bel Mer (2009), French Bid (2004) and Spirit Of Love (1998) last year.
Should Secret Agenda go back-to-back in 2018 she will be the first consecutive Robert Sangster Stakes winner in history.
The RN Irwin Stakes winner that beat the top two rated mares home at the track last time out, the Daniel Morton-trained Dainty Tess also returns for the rematch in gate five looking to do the double most recently completed by Driefontein (2014).
Andrew Noblet has accepted for last start Rubiton Stakes winning Written Tycoon mare Super Cash who jumps from barrier nine with Craig Williams aboard, while Victoria’s premier trainer Darren Weir has two runners.
Weir won the race with Platelet back in 2013 and has two livewire hopes in the mix on Saturday with last-start winners Quilista and Whispering Brook drawn well in barriers two and four respectively.
Quilista chases her fourth win on the trot, the untapped Scandal Keeper four-year-old last seen taking out the Group 2 Sapphire Stakes (1200m), the race Secret Agenda won on way to her Robert Sangster success in 2017, at Randwick on April 14 by nearly two lengths.
Former Perth-trained Whispering Brook meanwhile has won two of her past three starts since joining Weir in Victoria, her latest at the Robert Sangster Stakes track and distance on April 21.
She carried 59kg to a nice win in a handicap for fillies and mares and comes right back in weight to 56.5kg this weekend for her step-up in grade.
